Gerald McCoy on Bucs defense: We’re not going to slow down

The Buccaneers have been penalized 23 times in the first two games, with several of those flags coming on members of the defense for hits that officials have judged to be personal fouls.

All of those penalties have served to undermine an otherwise strong body of work by the team’s defense. The Buccaneers have nine sacks through two games, tied for the most in the league, and they’ve held their opponents to 3.4 yards per carry on the ground, a performance that they’d surely like to see continue throughout the regular season. That would explain why defensive tackle Gerald McCoy said that the team isn’t going to change the way they play because of the flags they’ve received this season.

During an appearance on WDAE on Wednesday night, McCoy said that the team hasn’t been doing anything differently in practice in order to eliminate the penalties from the game. McCoy said the team’s coaches have made the players aware of what they need to do, but that the team is otherwise approaching things exactly the same way.

“We’re not a dirty team and we’re not going to slow down. You know, we play on the edge and we’re going to continue to play on the edge. That’s just who we are,” McCoy said, via JoeBucsFan.com.

Playing on the edge requires a lot of balance. The reality in the present NFL is that defenses that play aggressively are going to run into flags even if the intent isn’t dirty. They can probably live with that as long as they eliminate the more blatant disregard for the rules that safeties Dashon Goldson and Ahmad Black have shown so far this season. No matter how good the defense is, the team doesn’t have much of a shot if they hand over hundreds of yards every weekend because they can’t be bothered to stop taking head shots whenever they present themselves.

Any defense that scores as many TDs as Drew Brees in a game shouldn’t change its approach too much, if at all. Just don’t take the penalties is all.

doe22us says:Sep 19, 2013 11:56 AM

You can be aggressive and relentless without being stupid, but unfortunately many of the personal carrying out these assignments are the latter. All you have to say is yes we will be aggressive yet smart, nah an NFL Player can probably say that.

Hey go right ahead and don’t fix the problem for this week. As the Pats and other teams that follow them on your schedule turn those penalties into points on the board instead of having drives killed, your losses will continue to heavily outnumber your wins.

@doe22us
says-
You can be aggressive and relentless without being stupid, but unfortunately many of the personal carrying out these assignments are the latter. All you have to say is yes we will be aggressive yet smart, nah an NFL Player can probably say that
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You used personal instead of personnel. Maybe you should look in the mirror to see stupid.